A place for John to rant and rave about his passions: music, movies, literature, soccer, his strange attempts at writing (songs, poems, short stories, and now even books), and general mayhem.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Best Day Ever (Or At Least Pretty Close)

Saturday: almost best day ever. It started off with a little soccer action. My nephew's team did lose, but it was still highly enjoyable watching the little tykes run amok. Then my wife and I went to Target and found the perfect little shelf (I'll be honest, I didn't really care as much about the shelf, but it made her happy so I felt good). After that, we went to a little show called The $250,000 Game Show Extravaganza Spectacular (or something along those lines. It's over at The Hilton, though). We went there more out of a desire to not get charged for reserving tickets and then not going, but it turned out to be fantastic fun. We were chosen to play in The Newlywed game and almost won it. As a consolation prize, we received two tickets to see Barry Manilow (which I immediately began to contemplate selling on Craig's List--it turns out that the cheapest seats cost over $80... not too shabby.). Then, as we re-entered the theater to see the last game, they were calling my raffle number. I ran up onto the stage and proceeded to choose the correct color (either black or red, and with much help from my wonderful wife) every time. It went like this: everyone would choose either black or red, and then the assistant would pick up the top card (from the giant deck of cards next to her). If it was a red suit and you had chosen red, you stayed; if you had chosen black you sat down. We kept playing rounds like these until I was the only one left standing. So, I go to play the final game--the chance to win $250,000 game. It was very difficult. There were twenty numbers to choose from (1-20). Each number had a secret dollar amount attached to it. If the dollar amounts from the three numbers you chose added up to $1,000 exactly, you won $250,000 and everyone in the audience won $100. Nice deal? That is statistically INCREDIBLY difficult. I didn't win, but I did get to keep the amount that my three numbers added up to. So, in the end, we won $860 and tickets to Barry Manilow.Then, I got to watch DCU play, and even more excitingly, RSL beat COL winning, for the first time, the Rocky Mountain Cup and knocking COL out of the playoff race.That night capped it all off: Jimmy Eat World.It was an amazing show. They opted to not play a ton of songs from Chase This Light. I was glad. It always takes me a little bit to get into a new Jimmy cd, so I wasn't feeling very comfortable with the new stuff, yet (heck , it just came out Tuesday). Their set sounded fantastic, and they commented that we were the best crowd they've ever played for in Vegas. That isn't too hard to believe. Vegas usually sucks. I'm glad that we represented well, though.The award for "Song I Wasn't Expecting To Blow Me Away Live, But Did" goes to "Disintegration". Matt agreed that it was his favorite moment from the show. After the show, I commented to Sierra that JEW's guitar work is probably my favorite; they work with and against each other so perfectly. So, favorite guitarist awards go thus: favorite single guitarist - Mike Einziger (of Incubus). Favorite two guitarists - Jim and Tom (of Jimmy Eat World).Sadly, we did miss Maritime. I found out that it is the new project of Davey and Dan from The Promise Ring. I'll be checking them out.